RE: Atheism -"No God, "religion has no validity"
February 15, 2015 at 7:28 pm
(This post was last modified: February 15, 2015 at 7:31 pm by bennyboy.)
(February 15, 2015 at 5:09 pm)dreamsofpotato Wrote: Got into a small debate with someone over atheism, thought i'd come here for some advice:
I said i'm an atheist. He responds and said he could never be one because atheism says there is absolutely no god and nothing created the universe. I disagreed with that definition and said that I'm pretty sure the only absolute claim that atheism makes is that Religion has no validity, no credibility in any sort of cosmological debate, that religion is made-up and the gods of those religions are made-up. As for cosmology, I said, most atheists leave that question to science.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this argument. Should i not have argued and accepted his definition of atheism? Was I wrong in my definition? Does such a claim warrant a correction? Or were we both splitting hairs?
Just FYI:
a = "not", the- (theos) = "god", -ism = "belief"
You can combine these two ways:
1) a+theism = not theism, i.e. LACK a belief in God. "You believe in God. I don't have that belief, unless you can prove it's valid." (also called weak atheism).
2) athe- (atheos) + ism = belief in not-God. "I've never seen evidence for any God, and I do not think the God idea is even logically sound. I believe no God exists." (also called strong atheism).
You can be strong atheist about specific definitions of God, and a weak atheist about others: "I definitely don't believe in an all-good Sky Daddy who punishes sins with an eternity in hellfire. But I'm open to the idea that SOME kind of god exists if you can show me some evidence for it." Of course, your friend's evidence is likely to be the existence of the universe, which he will insist without evidence must have been created by an intelligent entity. Or maybe he'll just wave toward a beautiful sunset and talk about the glory of Jeebus.
